America marks 50th anniversary of first man to orbit the earth

Her husband Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut and commander of the space shuttle
Endeavour's final mission, was the night's featured speaker and said he was
honoured to be sitting between two of his own heroes, Armstrong and Glenn.
He brought the audience a message from Giffords: "Be passionate. Be
courageous. Be strong. Be your best."

Glenn urged the audience to support research and education and shared the
lessons he learned when he was among the top military test pilots presented
in 1959 as the Mercury Seven. The only other surviving Mercury astronaut is
Scott Carpenter, who called out the memorable line "Godspeed John Glenn"
moments before the rocket ignited for Glenn's space flight.

"With a lot of work and a lot of people organised, you can do almost
anything," Glenn said.

Earlier Monday, Nasa had surprised Glenn with the kind of anniversary gift
only a space agency can give, enabling him to speak live with the
International Space Station from a stage at Ohio State University.

Sitting on stage with Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden, he chatted with three
space station crew members about space research and Nasa's future. Commander
Dan Burbank appeared by video link, flanked by two flight engineers floating
in the zero-gravity environment, and said the crew was delighted to help
commemorate Glenn's momentous trip.

"Fifty years ago today, Friendship 7 was orbiting planet Earth, and that
helped in a very big way, paved the way for America to become a space power,
and to go to the moon, and to do the things that we're doing right now on
the International Space Station," Burbank said.

Glenn had a light-hearted but educational exchange with the crew, asking them
about the types and number of experiments on board – more than 100, they
said – and explaining to his gravity-bound audience of more than 200 people
that, for example, a candle burns differently in space than on Earth.

When Bolden asked the astronauts which experiment they'd like to hand off to
Glenn if he could join them, Burbank suggested research on the "regenerative
environmental control systems" on spacecraft.